The 2020 Takeaway

Today, I’m going to be really honest.

2020 has been nuts.

And I’ve been ignoring it for a while.

Granted, my world wasn’t shaken to its core, but it has changed.

Up until this week, I've felt sort of a sense of guilt about it. It's what kept me from ever admitting that life is hard and I'm feeling some type of way about our world today.

I feel guilty because I know that so many others have it worse than me. So many people are navigating great loss and suffering and I'm getting by relatively unscathed.

I kept my job, and since I’m in healthcare, I never stopped going to work. In a professional aspect, everything was business as usual. I went to work, and we wore masks, but hey, I had a job and many others didn’t. So there was no reason to complain.

My family and I were on vacation together when everything shut down. Most of us work at the same hospital, so we stopped seeing everyone but each other.

My husband transitioned to working from home, and we saved money on gas and he was able to let the girls out several times a day. He kept his job and we gained some perks. All good things.

I’m fine, and yet there are struggling people everywhere. There are hundreds of thousands of people suffering right now, while I sit at home writing blog posts about fall.

How can I complain?

I can’t. I have everything I need.

I can, however, admit that things are different now, and different is uncomfortable sometimes, especially now.

I can admit that I am uncomfortable with the uncertainty of the future. I don't know how long this pandemic will last, and I don't know how much longer we are going to be social distancing and masking and using precautions.

I can admit that this year has affected me. More than I'd like to admit.

Even though the basic staples of my life are still intact, the world around me has changed, and I'm still figuring out how to deal with that. I'm not super emotionally intelligent, so it takes me a long time to figure out exactly what I'm feeling.

I think I'm sad.

Everything got harder this year, and its a bummer. It's harder to visit with extended family and friends. It's harder to advance in my career. It's harder to go places and see things. Heck, it's harder to make an appointment to get my eyebrows done. Everything requires lots of advance notice, and most times, even a reservation is hard to come by.

The holidays are coming up, and usually, I can't wait to celebrate and see everyone. This year, there is much more "maybe this" and "hopefully that". There is a lot of "not this year" and "we don't know if/when....".

I am so grateful to still have my family safe and healthy, and to still be employed, but this pandemic has still changed my world.

It feels wrong to say it affected me, but it did. It still does.

Even though others have been impacted in ways I can’t even begin to comprehend, I’m affected, too. We all are.

Navigating this strangeness is not for the weak. I'm not weak, and neither are you. It's a hard thing we're dealing with. I'm not afraid, because like I've said 1,000 times before, I do hard things.

This time, I'm learning to admit that I'm not feeling great about it. There is so much ugliness and strife in the world, and it makes me sad. There is pain, loss, anger, grief and frustration, all in massive quantities. I am allowed to feel all of those things, especially with everything 2020 has thrown at us. Even if I'm not great at identifying emotions, I'm allowed to feel "some type of way" about it until I figure it out.

Let me repeat that for the people (like me) in the back.

I am allowed to feel sad.

So are you. You're allowed a little while to be sad, or angry, or grieve.

What I am not allowed to do is be miserable. I am not allowed to let it ruin my joy.

Because there is more hope than sorrow. There is more love than pain. There is more joy than grief. There is more light than darkness.

It may be harder to find the light these days, but it's there. It's there in the friendly barista at the drive thru, and in a hot cup of your favorite coffee. It's in a child's eyes when they get to see a friend they haven't seen in months. It's there when your partner folds the laundry so you can relax for a minute. It's in falling leaves and your favorite scarf. It's in the voice of a loved one on the phone. Whatever it looks like for you, it's there.

Even when it seems like the world is ending, which, sometimes, it does, there is still joy. There is still love, and there is still hope.

And that, is what I'm holding on to.

“You, LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light.” Psalm 18:28

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:5